What Have You Watched Recently?

[Scott Baker]

Big Trouble In Little China.

 

Netflix popped up with it available for streaming, it's just that kind of an evening, and I'm too lazy to go find my DVD of it.

 

Classic.

 

This is the Porkchop Express, signing off.

[death tribble]

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog

The ending came as a surprise as I had read it differently beforehand. The Bad Horse chorus are wonderful. Neil and Nathan are wonderful. But Nathan has the best smarm lines including the one where he comes back to Dr Horrible in the laundrette.

[death tribble]

Mad Max. And Mad Max 2 (the Road Warrior to the Americans). This is how to do savagry. Rather than rampent cannibalism or zombies. And how can you  get better than  'YOU ! You can run but you can't hide !' or 'The warrior of the Wasteland. The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla'

[Christopher R Taylor]

A noir called The Killing.  Early Kubrick work, very dark and full of crime and mistakes made.  Its a great caper film, but everything goes horribly wrong, largely because of a very nasty woman, as noir usually goes.  It was well done, except the (probably studio-imposed) voiceover which was jarring and served only the purpose of setting dates and times.  Could have been done easily with a small notation on the screen.

[Pariah]

The Justice League Unlimited episode "The Ties that Bind (aka Miracles Happen)". It's awesome seeing Scott and Barda in animated form. I wish they had done more with then in that series.

[Ternaugh]

Blues Brothers on Netflix. It's just a lot of fun (and car wrecks).

[death tribble]

A noir called The Killing.  Early Kubrick work, very dark and full of crime and mistakes made.  Its a great caper film, but everything goes horribly wrong, largely because of a very nasty woman, as noir usually goes.  It was well done, except the (probably studio-imposed) voiceover which was jarring and served only the purpose of setting dates and times.  Could have been done easily with a small notation on the screen.

Check out Rififi. A French film of the same period with a robbery that goes right but the aftermath does not. Similarly The Red Circle (Cercle Rouge) with Alain Delon.

 

Been blitzing through the 4th season of Game of Thrones. Arya kills several people while travelling with the Hound. The Red Viper comes to King's Landing. Joffrey dies, which a lot of people were looking forward to. Tywin dies exactly as he did in the book. Sansa lies about the death of her aunt who dies again as in the book but someone else is blamed thr and killed for it.

[Hermit]

The Arrow finale, the Agents of SHIELD finale...

and the Flash which is approaching (you guessed it) its finale.

 

I liked them all to no one's surprise.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Watched an interesting show called Egypt that shows dramatized histories of great discoveries of ancient Egypt along with reenactments of Egyptian history behind the discoveries.  Quite good stuff.

[L. Marcus]

Citizen Kane. I can see why it's hailed as a cinema classic.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Citizen Kane. I can see why it's hailed as a cinema classic.

The thing that makes it great is that Welles was smart enough to trust audiences to come to their own conclusions about Kane, that the character did things that were both good and evil (or could be interpreted either way), and that he was willing to let them decide whether or not his fall from grace was what he deserved.

 

The publishing mogul Kane was modeled after, William Randolph Hearst, was still alive when Citizen Kane was made, and he was ticked. He did everything in his power to try and suppress it, and to ruin Orson Welles (who would remain a maverick, and uncomfortable for his studio backers, his entire directing career). Hearst was a vastly powerful and influential man (the scene about "You provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war" was based on something Hearst actually did, and it did in fact lead to war with Spain), but today the name Charles Foster Kane is probably more remembered.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Actually the Spanish-American war thing doesn't have any actual basis in fact but it makes a great story and it wouldn't surprise me if a newspaper publisher tried it.

 

Its nice to see new viewers seeing Citizen Kane and seeing it for the great film it is.  Too many people today don't understand what an unbelievable achievement it was in filmmaking.  Its not just really well filmed and interesting to watch with terrific performances, but Orson Wells did about 18 things nobody had ever tried before in filmmaking and did them brilliantly.  Now they're so standard and common people don't even know it.

[csyphrett]

Watched penguins of madagascar the movie. The penguins and the super secret agency North Wind take on Dave the Octopus. Some of it was hilarious, but some of it could have been funnier. At least Dave was made cute at the end.

CES   

[death tribble]

Watching Game of Thrones season 4 episode 9 in depth. This is the battle at the Wall. Also listening to the commentary. Peter Vaughan, who plays the blind Maester, once had second billing in a Frank Sinatra film The Naked Runner.

[Pattern Ghost]

Just finished Miss Granny, a Korean dramedy about a 74-year old woman turned young again. Hilarity, sentimentality, and a bit of drama ensues. Not the most original premise, but very well-executed on all fronts.

 

Edit: Saw it on Netflix streaming, recommended if you like that sort of thing.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Following in your father's footsteps is hard enough -- but if your father is one of the three or four greatest animators in history, dealing with the expectations can be overwhelming. That's the case for Goro Miyazaki, the son of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki. Theoretically someone has to carry on the legacy of Studio Ghibli what its founder is gone for good (he supposedly retired with The Wind Rises but has made noises about eventually directing again -- after all, he has retired before), and Goro apparently has been elected. His first feature was the disastrous Tales of Earthsea, For his second chance he brought his father along as the screenwriter, and presumably got a lot of other advice.

 

The movie that resulted is much better, From Up on Poppy Hill was largely ignored in America when it came out (it may have gone straight to DVD), but it's still an impressive piece of moviemaking. Goro will never be Hayao, but he's improving.

 

The film is set in a maritime village in Japan. It's 1963 and Japan is trying to shake off the militarism that led to the disaster of World War II and reshape itself. For a girl named Umi, who had lost her sea-captain father in the Korean War, growing up has been awkward. At school she runs into a boy named Shun and is soon drawn into his crusade to save the school's historic but decrepit clubhouse from the wrecking ball. The question is whether it is worth preserving this part of the school's heritage when something new and shiny can be built in its place. It's clear why this theme would appeal to Hayao Miyazaki, for whom old structures and the ways of the country have always been major inspirations. Umi and Shun are strongly attracted to each other, but the discovery of a family secret threatens to drive them apart. For the two situations (building and relationship) to resolve requires no less than three different deux ex machina events.

 

But the film is beautiful. Utterly gorgeous. Hayao Miyazaki was always the most painterly of animators, and Goro has picked up on it. The film is loaded with period detail large and small. from cooking equipment to the stencils and screen printing used to make the school newspaper to the buildings and vehicles of the run-down town. Nothing glittery or shiny here -- everything shows the weight of time and use.The landscapes are lush and green, and an oil painting that plays a role in the story is exactingly rendered to the point that you can virtually see every brushstroke.

 

Studio Ghibli has just released their newest feature, When Marnie Was There, in the US, and it is rumored the studio will soon be getting out of the features business. If so it will be a tragic loss -- cel animation has few remaining practitioners (in America, the last major cel-drawn release was Disney's The Princess and the Frog) yet the form can create moments of exquisite beauty that I fear may soon be lost. We may be approaching the "Big Yellow Taxi" moment, when we realize the virtue of the art as it is gone.

[Greywind]

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Big Hero 6

Ultraman 80

King Kong Escapes

[Michael Hopcroft]

A final note on From Up on Poppy Hill (see it!) -- Goro Miyazaki really didn't want to be an animator. Originally he was an in-demand landscape architect. Hayao Miyazaki was not an attentive parent -- virtually ignoring his family for weeks at a time while working on his projects. (That is not all that uncommon in Japanese business life). Somehow, after he had designed the grounds of the Ghibli museum, he ended up working at the studio.

 

Needless to say, From Up on Poppy Hill has a lot of gorgeous landscapes.

[death tribble]

Dr Who: The Invasion.This is one of the stories with missing episodes. Happily in this case there are only two and these have been animated. It is one of Patrick Troughton's stories. There is a nice long build up while the Doctor investigates a company before you find out what is going on and who is behind it. The story is an important one as it introduces UNIT for the first time and has one of the most iconic moments in Who history. The Cybermen walking menacingly downstairs near St Paul's Cathedral. Indeed they don't appear until the end of episode 4. This leaves the villainy to Kevin Stoney as Tobias Vaughan. He did a master class in villainy to match his one as Mavic Chen in the Daleks Masterplan which he played opposite William Hartnell.

[death tribble]

Enigma. A wonderful film. A genius who has suffered a breakdown returns to the code breaking centre Bletchley Park after the Getmans change their Enigma code for the U Boats. He tries to find the girl he was infatuated with, who has also disappeared, whilst also trying to crack the code again. You also get the reason why the Germans have changed the code.

Having discovered the Katyn massacre site the Germans sent signals about it including the names of the dead. The messages are intercepted and decoded by the British and this is what causes the problem.

Jaremy Northam as the intelligence head brought in to investigate is really good as he is seen to act as a detective would but with a wider remit.

[death tribble]

The Man With The Iron Fists 2. Rza returns as the blacksmith Thaddeus who washes up at a village menaced by a killer slaying young girls while the locals labour in a silver mine for a wicked clan head. Rza takes a back seat and lets the Chinese carry the film until the climatic fight.

[csyphrett]

The Lego Movie. Its the best thing Will Ferril has ever done

CES

[death tribble]

Godzilla. The new Hollywood one.

The film lets both the American and Japanese culture win. A different city gets the demolition treatment, San Francisco instead of New York or Tokyo. And practical things work. Get people out safely. Use shelters. People still get killed but they are also shown being saved and you have the aftermath of trying to reunite people. The US Military is not portrayed as stupid. They do the wrong thing with the bombs but it is for the right reasons. Good use of Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche as you care what happens because of their performances.

The big guy looks good and he has Nuclear Fire Breath.

[Vondy]

Smokin' Aces (2007). Its got a talented ensemble cast, strong direction, and a crisp and witty script. It also culminates in a fantastic bullet storming, body dropping gunfight that is well worth watching. It does suffer from two problems: there isn't really anyone to root for, and its over-stylized in the Tarantino / Ritchie vein. This denies it a sense of its own authenticity. Redneck punk hitmen with chainsaws won't change that. Still, as someone who loves the noir and crime genres, I found it enjoyable.